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IBM MQ vs TIBCO Enterprise Message Service comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM MQ
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
1st
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
170
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (1st)
TIBCO Enterprise Message Se...
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
2nd
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 39.7%, down from 41.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 19.6%, down from 26.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Md Al-Amin - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable and secure performance consistently enhances message transfer
IBM MQ is more reliable and secure than other software. There is a saying that for the last 30 years IBM MQ has never been hacked. It is more secure and reliable. Whenever the configuration is done, I do not have to touch it again. It works fine, it is stable, and its communication is to the point and accurate. All performance-related aspects are better. Performance-wise, it is scalable, and other features such as DR, DC, replication, and active passive mode are complex to configure, but it remains scalable. The pricing model for IBM MQ could be more flexible for clients.
Ray Ochieng - PeerSpot reviewer
A value-for-money solution with the requisite features to facilitate efficient communication within an organization
We have been struggling with the stability of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service (EMS), but now I don't know how to differentiate whether the issues are caused by the infrastructure or the product itself. So, I am hesitant to provide a rating because I suspect that it might be due to my setup or environment. I really don't know how to evaluate the product independently. We have faced challenges with EMS, but I am unsure if it is related to infrastructure or the product itself. Even if I reach out for support, I am uncertain if the issue will be resolved since it could be partly related to the product. It's a tough situation.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"IBM MQ is a choice to create a relation between the Mainframe and distributed servers, allowing applications running on Linux or Windows to interface with Mainframe applications and enable more development of easier and open applications in a distributed environment."
"The MQ protocol is widely used across multiple applications and it's so simple for connectivity."
"There are a lot of extensible options for security, i.e., various things you can do. It's pretty easy to navigate."
"We have implemented business to business transactions over MQ messaging. The guaranteed and once only delivery ensures business integrity."
"IBM MQ's flexibility has sped up our active communication."
"It's ability to scale, it's ability to do guaranteed delivery and it's ability to do point-to-point of what we subscribe are the most valuable features."
"Combined with IBM MQ, this product is our primary data store."
"It is easy to create a new queue, and the queue manager connecting to the remote queue works smoothly once the IP and port are included."
"​The initial setup is straightforward and the product documentation is very good.​"
"TIBCO Enterprise Message Service's most valuable features are rapid zero-code integration and its large number of adapters and plugins."
"It is very useful tool. It is also very easy to learn and implement.​"
"We have implanted the core middleware solution for the organization using this product and it is responsible for communication between different applications."
"The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server."
"The Enterprise Messaging Server will store the message and wait for other subscribers to come onto the network."
"It allows us to achieve synchronous as well as asynchronous communication with the added advantage of making the communication reliable."
"I like TIBCO's ability to create versioned queues and persistent messages."
 

Cons

"IBM MQ could streamline its complexity to be more like Kafka without the channel complexities of clusters, making it more straightforward."
"I would like the ability to connect with some of the more recent offerings, such as API Connect; being able to publish our MQ endpoints, the queues, the messaging infrastructure as IT assets."
"I'm not sure that current version has event-driven mechanism requests that people go for. I would like the latest version to come with both type of event mechanisms: an email server and a POP server. If that is not there, then that would be a great addition."
"IBM MQ is not very user-friendly."
"The installation of product upgrades and patches is very difficult. It requires the use of the IBM Installation Manager (IM)."
"The main issue we are having with the solution is due to the connection dropouts which have been going on for a long time now."
"IBM MQ could improve by adding more protocols or APIs for a standard application, such as MuleSoft."
"Everything in the solution could be simplified a little. We have trouble with the configuration and cost which is mostly an internal issue, but nevertheless, the errors do come up when there are configuration changes across a specific version. We have slightly different versions, which may have slightly different configurations which cause issues."
"An area for improvement would be integration with the API layer."
"I would like to see better integration with Java and Apache Kafka."
"TIBCO also has its proprietary line of cloud-based applications, but specifically, these two products are not cloud compatible."
"Overall, my experience with the support team has been disappointing."
"​Since all the communications goes through this product, it acts as a single point of failure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our costs haven't increased but they also have not improved."
"I think IBM needs to look at its pricing. The prices of IBM products should be simple. The old way of pricing should now be moving on to the cloud to be pay as you go, a plan-based kind of pricing."
"IBM's licensing model seems more reasonable than some competitors. They charge based on usage, which is good."
"The pricing seems good according to the functionality that the solution provides."
"The price is high."
"It is a very expensive product compared to the open source products in the market."
"IBM MQ appliance has pricing options, but they are costly."
"The fee for this solution is on the higher end of the scale."
"In our case, we didn't pay for each product separately. We simply paid for all those companies that provided the components."
"​The cost of licensing is very high. One should go for the product only if they need to ensure message reliability and they cannot afford to lose messages.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
36%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
44%
Computer Software Company
14%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
Real Estate/Law Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is MQ software?
Hi As someone with 45+ years of experience in the Transaction and Message Processing world, I have seen many "MQ" solutions that have come into the market place. From my perspective, while each pro...
What are the differences between Apache Kafka and IBM MQ?
Apache Kafka is open source and can be used for free. It has very good log management and has a way to store the data used for analytics. Apache Kafka is very good if you have a high number of user...
How does IBM MQ compare with VMware RabbitMQ?
IBM MQ has a great reputation behind it, and this solution is very robust with great stability. It is easy to use, simple to configure and integrates well with our enterprise ecosystem and protocol...
What do you like most about TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server.
What needs improvement with TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
Maybe the capability to undergo training for specific functionalities, such as implementing Kaspersky for handling high volume transactions in TIBCO Enterprises Message Service. Occasionally, we su...
What is your primary use case for TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
I use TIBCO Enterprise Message Service for some of my internal communications. For instance, if there is an API called A that needs to communicate with an API referred to as B, we prefer to use mes...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere MQ
Enterprise Message Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
BNL, SunGard, TUI Group, UTi Worldwide, Yellow Pages Group
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MQ vs. TIBCO Enterprise Message Service and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.